BBC ‘lifer’ Moira Stuart exits Radio 2 for rival Classic FM
MOIRA STUART has become the latest Radio 2 veteran to quit the BBC for a commercial rival. The newsreader will join Classic FM in the New Year, hosting her own weekend music programmes and presenting breakfast news bulletins.
She follows Chris Evans and Simon Mayo, who have also handed in their notice in recent months. Radio 2 insiders say there is an unhappy atmosphere at the station and Stuart, like others, felt “taken for granted” by BBC management.
Stuart, 69, has been with the BBC for more than 40 years. For the past nine years she has read the news during The Chris Evans Breakfast Show, which comes to an end next week.
A source said: “This is something that Moira had been considering for a while, although Chris’s announcement did make her think. Moira has been a BBC lifer, but you can be a national treasure and still be taken for granted. She has come to the realisation that there’s more to life than the BBC. When she said she was leaving, they tried to keep her. But it was too little, too late.”
Stuart lost her job at the corporation in 2007 in what many saw as an example of ageism, but was brought back in 2010. Her salary last year was £160,000-£169,999.
In February she will become Classic FM’S morning news presenter, appearing during Tim Lihoreau’s breakfast show and John Suchet’s mid-morning programme. From July she will host her own Saturday afternoon show, Moira Stuart’s Hall of Fame Concert.
Stuart said: “It’s a wonderful opportunity to take a whole new journey, with people I really like and admire.”
Lewis Carnie, head of Radio 2, said: “We’d like to thank Moira for being such a much-loved part of the Radio 2 Breakfast Show team for the past nine years and wish her the very best of luck for the future.”